Dodgers giving away Campanella, Reese bobbleheads at Saturday game

LOS ANGELES (CNS) - The first 50,000 fans at tonight’s Los Angeles Dodgers game will receive a bobblehead featuring Roy Campanella and Pee Wee Reese, two stars of the Brooklyn Dodgers’ “Boys of Summer” teams of the 1940s and 1950s.

Reese’s son Mark and Campanella’s daughter Joni will throw the ceremonial first pitch before tonight’s game against the San Diego Padres.

Dodger Stadium’s auto gates will open at 4:30 p.m. and its stadium gates at 5 p.m. for the 7:10 p.m. game.

Campanella was the fourth black to play in the major leagues and the first catcher. He was an eight-time all-star and selected as the National League’s Most Valuable Player in 1951, 1953 and 1955. He was inducted into baseball’s Hall of Fame in 1969.

Reese was the shortstop and captain of the Dodger teams, which won six National League pennants from 1947 through 1956. He is also remembered for his support of Jackie Robinson when he broke baseball’s color line in 1947 and drew opposition from some teammates and taunts from opposing players and fans.

Reese retired as a player following the 1958 season, the Dodgers’ first in Los Angeles. He was a coach with the team in 1959, then was a baseball announcer for CBS and NBC and worked for Hillerich & Bradsby, the manufacturers of the Louisville Slugger bats. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1984.

An automobile accident in 1958 ended Campanella’s playing career and left him confined to a wheelchair.

A crowd of 93,103, then the largest to watch a baseball game in the United States, came to the Coliseum for Roy Campanella Night for an exhibition game in 1959 between the Dodgers and New York Yankees, which raised funds for Campanella.

At least 15,000 more fans were turned away, according to Los Angeles Fire Department estimates cited by the Los Angeles Times.

Between the fifth and sixth innings, the lights of the Coliseum were turned off, and fans were asked to strike matches in tribute when Campanella was wheeled onto the field by Reese.

“I thank God that I’m living to be here,” Campanella said in a pregame speech. “I thank each and every one of you from the bottom of my heart. It is something I’ll never forget.”

Campanella, who served as a organizational instructor with the Dodgers and as a member of their community relations department following his playing career, died in 1993 at the age of 71 from a heart attack.

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“No one had more courage than Roy Campanella,” then-Dodger owner Peter O’Malley said on learning of his death. “To me, he was the greatest Dodger of them all.”